Hi Erik, I ***think*** I understand what you just said. The problem with both your answer and **mine** is that it depends on hand shapes / arm movement etc. and doesn't address the real core of bringing power up from the ground. I'm thinking about how to address that portion of the question, simply because I really want to try to understand some of the things I'm feeling when I do this.

No, it doesn't actually, it can be done with a merest twitch oriented properly -- as Ikeda does it -- it is just that the twitch and the grosser motions are not different, they are mechanically the same -- using the same principles. The tendency to stick with "big" action is just a partial solution to the problem, but not inherently wrong. The rest is sensitivity, shape, coordination, increasing sharpness, diminished amplitude. Mine is much grosser than Ikeda, but not bad : "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and ..... "

The same thing applies -- the "windings" (I believe is the term some prefer -- I would say torsional moments or shear) -- and is equally present in the lower limbs and using the same essential mechanisms. Whereas the "upper cross" brings the scapulae together in opening asagao (or retraction that opens the hands out, turned up and wider, the closing asagao "dumps the cup" and extends the hands forward and turning over downward. Two other slightly varied limb actions -- "cutting" outward and "gathering" inward complete the foursome of fundamental core driven shear actions of the limbs. but in reality they are just more planar versions of asagao, cutting being opening and gathering being closing. Complementary actions of the lower limbs also exist and may be displayed in gross action by a reaping foot sweep (gathering) and a slashing yokogeri (cutting).

The key is understanding how the orientation of the wave of planar and spiral shears occurs (if you let it) and is what matters -- without regard to the gross motion of turning the arms over. So I could equally generate opening or closing asagao with out changing the position of the hands at all, though there are slightly different effects or uses in moving or not moving to do it. It is sometimes easier to know the shapes of the actions with gross movement to guide.

The latter two actions (cutting and gathering) are propagated to the arms and to the legs by the torsion shears of the torso as a whole around its vertical axis, and in the legs in addition by the lateral tilt of the pelvis. The first two actions -- opening and closing asagao in the upper body -- are propagated from the hara by control of the curvature of the lordosis curves of the spine in the sagittal plane and through the transition of the "upper cross" to the shoulder girdles oriented in the coronal plane, and converting the fore-aft shears into more lateral or spiral orientations.

This is one reason why the shoulders lifting is destabilizing because they can no longer perform these continuous torque conversions to and from the spine/torso when they become unstuck. As a result, the inputs become a pure toppling moment or a pure racking torsion at the top of the structure -- collapsing it. The same is true in the lower limb analog to the scapular upper cross in opening and closing (the tilt or thrust line of the pelvis fore and aft), and if it is unstuck or misaligned then its function in handling the torque shear conversion is also lost and a pure toppling moment or racking torsion is created at the waist level.